


When My Mind Fades

by Cr1mson5theStranger



Series: When My Mind Fades [1]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Brain Cancer, Cancer, Gen, Terminal Illnesses, Terminal Tadashi, crossposted to tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cr1mson5theStranger/pseuds/Cr1mson5theStranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tumor was situated firmly in his brain, but not so firmly as to negate the possibility of surgery. The doctors told him that an operation would certainly save his chances of a normal life, if not save his life altogether. Aunt Cass had signed the papers before giving a second thought as how they would pay down the hospital bills on top of all the other bills they still had to worry about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When My Mind Fades

**Author's Note:**

> This work is cross-posted to Tumblr and is part of an AU series. I'll be uploading the other parts as soon as I can.

Tadashi had barely been eighteen when it happened.

The tumor was situated firmly in his brain, but not so firmly as to negate the possibility of surgery. The doctors told him that an operation would certainly save his chances of a normal life, if not save his life altogether, and the addition of chemotherapy and radiation would make certain the cancer was gone. Aunt Cass had signed the papers before giving a second thought as how they would pay down the hospital bills on top of all the other bills they still had to worry about. It was not the first time in his life that Tadashi had known fear, but it was the most memorable, aside from the genuine fright that had overtaken him in the days following their parents’ demise.

Dr. Minamoto at the hospital assured him that it was perfectly normal to be afraid; the future, after all, was highly uncertain, and he was too young to hear the lie that everything would always be fine. There was no way they could guarantee that the cancer would not return. And, really, Tadashi was grateful for the wide network of support surrounding him. Aunt Cass was taking up a donation (albeit an unsolicited one) from customers at the Lucky Cat Café. Hiro had plunked a large jar down beside the café register, “Tips for Tadashi” scrawled over an index card taped to the glass, and added the contents of his smashed piggy bank to it. His high school began selling “Tips for Tadashi” shirts at every sporting event, and the student council set up fundraisers to contribute to paying for his treatment. It was more than Tadashi had ever expected, more than he had ever dared to dream could happen to someone like him.

Still, though, he had been deathly frightened. He had been plagued by nightmares and anxieties. His whole body shook with nervousness when he entered the hospital for his surgery, clutching Aunt Cass’s hand tightly in his own. Even after the surgery, after the doctors informed them of the success and the dates when they would put in his chemotherapy port and start him on the treatment, Tadashi still sweated at the thought that the cancer was lurking in the recesses of his cranial cavity, dormant and waiting for an opportune moment to strike.

Thought and understanding never quite came as easily to him, after that.

*

_“This is Tadashi Hamada, and this is the first test of my robotics project.”_

_Tadashi reaches out toward the soft, white robot in front of him and pushes the green healthcare chip into the access port on its chest. A quiet whirring sounds in the laboratory just briefly before the robot’s round, black eyes click open. “Hello,” it greets serenely. “I am Baymax, yourrr—eeeeeeeeeeeeeee—”_

_Shrill whining as the sensors built into its eyes failed, and Tadashi flinched away to grasp reflexively at his aching ears._

_“Stop, stop, stop!”_

*

Prior to his cancer, Tadashi had proudly sported a full head of thick, raven hair that was nearly impossible to tame. He always combed it forward, hoping to achieve some semblance of order among the wild locks, but to no avail. Hiro, proving to be ever the more intelligent of the two, had given up on combing his hair the moment it grew into a mane and only ever got it trimmed, never fixed. Tadashi, however, proving to be ever the more stubborn of the two, had always been determined to force his hair to bend to his will, no matter the consequences.

Tadashi had felt hot tears sting his eyes the first day a chunk of his own hair fell right out of his scalp. He and Hiro had their mother’s hair. It had felt too much like losing a part of her that he could never regain, and though he was eighteen, he had broken down and sobbed into his pillow when even more of his hair was lost. That was when the full weight of reality crashed down upon his shoulders. The chemo was taking his hair. It was worse than any nightmare because it was grotesquely real.

Tadashi was entirely bald before Christmas that year, when Hiro presented him with a package in rudimentary wrapping, with an additional proclamation of, “It’s from me and Aunt Cass. To, you know…help you feel better.” Tadashi tore away the wrapping paper, threw the lid of the box aside, and very nearly cried again at the sight of his gift.

The wig was perfect, jet-black like his hair had once been, and cut short and stylish. Tadashi looked up at his younger brother with watering eyes. Hiro rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck, grinning and explaining, “I know you always talked about cutting your hair short before college, and I just thought—”

Tadashi had cut him off by pulling him forcefully into an embrace and holding him close. His grateful sobs shook them both, and Tadashi could only whisper his heartfelt thanks as he clutched the wig in his hand and braced Hiro’s small frame against his chest.

Tadashi graduated high school with a thin fuzz of hair growing back underneath the wig.

*

_Failure, in science, does not mean the opposite of success but another step towards it, Tadashi thinks as he presses record and announces, “The seventh test of my robotics project.”_

_The robot opens its eyes, blinks once, and greets him, “Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”_

_Joy wells up in Tadashi’s chest, and he grins wide. “Hey, buddy. Scan me, will you?”_

_Baymax is still for a moment too long. Tadashi’s grin has just begun to fall when Baymax’s chubby arms suddenly begin to flail about in the air. He finds himself assaulted on all sides by inflated vinyl hands and stubby fingers pushing him back and forth. One arm detaches from the robot’s body and soars over Tadashi’s head before crashing into the shelves on the far wall. In a panic, Tadashi shoves Baymax’s other arm aside and reaches for the access port._

_“Wait, wait, wait, stop scan!”_

*

When Dr. Minamoto announced that he was officially in remission, Tadashi had never felt more alive.

The excitement of the moment had so overwhelmed him that he’d immediately gathered Hiro up into a tight embrace and swung him around, both boys laughing harder than they had in months and barely acknowledging the salty tears of joy that streamed down their faces. Aunt Cass clapped a hand over her mouth and openly sobbed, repeating, “Oh, my baby. Oh, my boy.”

Tadashi and Hiro chased each other out of the hospital that day, crowing and whooping in victory. Aunt Cass treated them to lunch at their favorite restaurant and ice cream for dessert. Hiro prattled happily along every step of the way, glad to have his brother back. And Tadashi was grateful that he’d won the battle, that he’d gotten his life back. It had quickly become the most important summer of his entire existence, and he was happier for it on the whole.

Still, though, the ordeal had done its damage. It had inflicted its scars upon him, and he knew he would not go another day without seeing them, without feeling the pain all over again, if only for an instant. He still checked his pillowcase every morning for clumps of hair, still struggled to get used to the feeling of his newly-thinned, shortened hair. He had nearly forgotten what his skin’s healthy pallor was. His clothes were now at least a size too large on him.

Most noticeable of all, though, was the subtle paranoia he carried through it all. Every headache or migraine, no matter how slight, was accompanied by the lurking anxiety of relapse. Every stumble brought a stab of panic in his chest. One thought always seemed to linger in his mind, not quite far enough back for his liking:  _What if the cancer comes back?_

Still, life went on, or it seemed to. The Lucky Cat was every bit as prosperous as it had always been. Their regulars congratulated Tadashi on his remission status and Hiro on his success in high school. Tadashi still rode out every other night to rescue his idiot brother from another bot fight halfway across the city. Aunt Cass made delicious meals, and Mochi invaded everyone’s space indiscriminately. All seemed to go on as normal, with the only reminders of the ordeal being within Tadashi’s own body.

There was little extraordinary to celebrate until the day that Aunt Cass burst into the boys’ room, waving a letter in her hand. She had practically leapt across the room to hand it to Tadashi, who was more than mildly surprised at the contents.

He became a proud member of the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology with a bigger scholarship than he’d ever imagined.

*

_A myriad of sleepless nights spent in his lab, spread throughout the last several weeks whenever no one was around to tell him to go home, have taken their toll on Tadashi. The heavy weight of discouragement sits low in his chest as he stands before his creation with exhausted eyes and four-day stubble and sighs, “Tadashi Hamada again, and this is the…thirty-third test of my robotics project.”_

_This time, he hasn’t even touched the robot before a shower of sparks spurts from the equipment set up around it and, with a low whir, the power flickers out. Tadashi jumps back to avoid the sparks and drops his title slate, bending over to pick up his flashlight. He clicks it on and leans in close to examine Baymax’s upgrading hookup for flaws that could’ve caused the outage. Fighting despair, he presses his lips tightly together and asserts, mostly to himself, “I’m not giving up on you. You don’t understand this yet, but people need you.”_

_Tadashi sets his jaw in determination. There must be a way._

_“So let’s get back to work.”_

*

Initially, university was an immense struggle for Tadashi.

Though the doctors had assured him that he had not lost much of his former ability, he had known that, for a Hamada man, such a statement could and likely would easily add up to more than expected. He hadn’t realized how much it had affected him, though, until he began his classes at SFIT. Suddenly, making connections between concepts and concentrating in class were a strain on him, and as he battled his own damaged brain more and more, his academic marks suffered.

It was an appropriately cloudy day in San Fransokyo, and Tadashi was sitting in a more or less secluded area of the campus, head in his hands and desperate tears rolling silently down his cheeks. He could sense his scholarship slipping from his grasp, could practically see his bright and soaring future crashing and burning into dust before him. His face flushed with shame at the thought of what his parents would say, of what Aunt Cass would do, of what Hiro would think of him if he—the wiser, cooler older brother—failed out of college.

A slender, gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder, and Tadashi started, wiping his eyes hurriedly and turning to see who was behind him. A young Japanese woman, short in stature with cropped black hair streaked purple and a serious face, knelt next to him in the grass. She worked a piece of chewing gum between her jaws, blowing a small bubble and popping it with a loud crack. “Hamada, right?” she asked.

Tadashi blinked and nodded, somewhat shocked.

The girl settled into a sitting position. “Nariko Tomago, or GoGo, whichever you prefer.” She heaved a sigh. “Look, I’ll get right to the point. It’s obvious even to the stupidest person here that you’re having trouble. But there are plenty of people here willing to help you, you know.”

Tadashi opened his mouth to respond, but GoGo held up a hand to cut him off. “You know what? It’s six weeks into the semester. I don’t think you’re going to ask for help on your own, so—I’m taking you to get help. From only the best, of course, because I’m a nice person.”

She pushed herself to her feet, brushed off her clothes, and fixed him with a gaze that could probably have stopped  _Hiro_  from going to a bot fight. “Well? Are you coming?”

Tadashi nodded slowly. GoGo extended a hand to him, and he took it warily. She pulled him up and began tugging him along behind her immediately. Before long, they were at the student labs, ducking and weaving through the dozens of varied experiments to reach the corridors. “Wait, where are we—” Tadashi began.

“You’ll see,” GoGo promised.

They approached a tall, broad-shouldered man with brown hair streaked by gray. He sported a purple sweater vest, white dress shirt, and black khakis, and his back was turned to them as they hurried up. “Hey, Professor!” GoGo called, gaining his attention. He turned around with a smile and extended a hand to Tadashi.

“Tadashi Hamada? I’m Robert Callaghan. I’ve heard some promising things about you.”

*

_“This is Tadashi Hamada, and…this is the eighty-fourth test.”_

_Tadashi scrubs tiredly at the back of his neck where it’s beginning to burn. He’s beginning to wonder if this project might be hopeless after all. But he is a scientist, and he does intend to do some good with what skills of his remain before the inevitable occurs, and so he squares his shoulders, forces a smile, and asks cheerfully, “What do you say, big guy?”_

_He presses the chip into the access port._

_Baymax’s eyes click open. The robot’s voice, soft and soothing, greets, “Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”_

_Tadashi is stunned into silence. There are so many words to describe what his heart is doing that he can’t decide which is best to use: incredulous, relieved, or maybe even overjoyed. “It works,” he whispers. Then, nearly screaming, “It works! Oh, this is amazing!” He makes no attempt to restrain himself from scurrying around in an excited circle. “You—you work!” He reaches up to press a kiss to Baymax’s face and, in his elation, pumps a fist in the air and dances about. “I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! You work! I can’t believe—I can’t—” He swallows down another shout and steps back. “Okay, big moment here: Scan me.”_

_He holds his arms at an angle away from his sides, grinning wildly. Baymax’s head dips down and back up quickly, a whirring noise emanating from the robot’s plush body. “Your neurotransmitter levels are elevated,” he reports. “This indicates that you are happy.”_

_Tadashi lets out a joyful laugh. “I am,” he replies. “I really am.” And he stops for a moment to admire his creation. “You’re going to help so many people, buddy, so many. That’s all for now; I am satisfied with my care.”_

_He smiles warmly, happily, at Baymax as the robot deactivates. He’s done it. He’s finally succeeded._

*

Professor Callaghan and his new friends were infinitely gracious to Tadashi. Without their help, he knew he would never have survived SFIT. Before long, he was not simply surviving, but thriving. He no longer dreaded coming to campus for his classes or working in the lab with the other robotics majors. In fact, school was one of the brightest portions of his day, it seemed.

On his nineteenth birthday, GoGo, Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Fred blocked off the doors of Tadashi’s lab until he ate his cake, drank his soda, and let them bestow upon him a San Fransokyo Ninjas cap—“for good luck,” Fred had insisted.

GoGo flatly corrected that it was because he was an Asian who knew karate.

By the end of his freshman year at SFIT, Tadashi was excitedly bounding around the lab, inviting anyone he could think of to come with him to see Hiro graduate from high school. When Honey Lemon asked whether that was the same Hiro who was only thirteen years old and a complete troublemaker, Tadashi cried, “Yes! Isn’t it awesome?!”

Tadashi and Aunt Cass were as embarrassing as could be expected at the ceremony.

The headaches returned that summer. Tadashi would have gladly admitted, in hindsight, that he was in denial. He blamed them on stress, fatigue, long workdays, and any variety of other standard college student excuses. He waved them away with a smile and a reassuring word or two, and people believed him.

Soon after, though, the dizziness and the lethargy resurfaced. Mornings brought numbness in his right side that persisted until nearly midday. GoGo made a passing jab as Tadashi stumbled into the SFIT labs yet again—“Been drinking today, Hamada?”—and he laughed it off as best he could. He found it odd that he was beginning to forget his keys, his assignments, his reading glasses, and even his lucky cap. He elected not to tell Aunt Cass when breakfast came sloshing back up the same way it had gone down or when Seventh Street began to swim before his eyes. He did his best to hold in his sarcastic remarks when Hiro made his jokes and tried to bite back his anger at things that upset him for uncertain reasons.

Still, Tadashi managed to avoid going back to the doctor until the week before his twentieth birthday. He was peering over Honey Lemon’s shoulder one day at the lab, listening to her rambling explanation of her newest discovery and feeling rather peculiar, when suddenly he was on the floor, with people crowded around him and looking panicked. His face flushed and he tried to lever himself upright, and hands reached out from all sides to keep him from standing.

Wasabi jogged over with Professor Callaghan trailing close behind. They pushed through the crowd to Tadashi, and Callaghan knelt beside him. “What happened?” he demanded, one strong hand clapping down on his student’s shoulder.

Tadashi blinked at him vacantly. Words were only just beginning to form on his lips when Honey Lemon abruptly explained, “He had a seizure, I think. I don’t know, he just—fell over and was shaking.” Tadashi turned his eyes to her and realized, belatedly, that she was crying.

Callaghan’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “Tadashi. Tadashi, look at me.” Tadashi turned back to his professor. “You’ve not been yourself lately,” Callaghan said firmly, “and given the circumstances and your medical history, I can’t let you come back to the lab until you’ve gone to a doctor. Fair?”

It wasn’t, not really, not in Tadashi’s mind, but he went. Several tests later, he found himself alone in the house with Aunt Cass, tears in his eyes and a bundle of papers clutched tightly in his hand. The tumor was large, carving itself a hole in his cerebrum and spreading through to other places in his brain, robbing him slowly of his functions. Dr. Minamoto told him that, at best, he had five months. Six or seven, if he went through with chemotherapy and radiation again, but they could give him no more. This time, the cancer was far more aggressive. It was guaranteed to kill him.

With all the force of a blow to the chest, a thought pushed into his mind:  _Hiro._  What would Hiro do when Tadashi was gone? Who would keep him out of trouble and look after him? Who would work the problems out of robotics plans with him and encourage him to pursue something worthy of his talent? Who would be there to listen when he opened up about his loneliness and his longings, sliding in and out of half-remembered Japanese?

Tadashi glanced up from his desk, catching sight of a partially-built robot across the room. They had intended it, years ago, to follow them around on their many adventurous public park expeditions so that Aunt Cass wouldn’t have to, giving up once they realized they lacked the necessary supplies to make it walk correctly.

Hiro would need a companion.

And Tadashi would need to build him one, before the end came.


End file.
